In this angry sonnet, the narrator curses the Dark Lady he is in love with because she has also trapped the heart of the young man the narrator is also in love with. The narrator feels enslaved and imprisoned by his feelings for the woman, and also angry and betrayed. He calls her "cruel" and speaks of "torture," "torment" and wounds. He feels she has robbed him of everything by stealing his young man: she has robbed him of herself, the young man and his own sense of self, for what is he without his loves? As he puts it:

Of him, myself, and thee [you] I am forsaken,
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed.